“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” ― Paulo Coelho
Somatic psychotherapy, Somatic EMDR, IFS,
& Integrative Therapy for Holistic Well-Being
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Anxiety, low mood, T(t)rauma, emotional reactivity and overwhelm
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Desire to identify personal gifts and fully potentialize one's life
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Couples seeking relational effectiveness and meaningful connection
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High achieving folx who could benefit from support, but not sure how anyone could help them
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Multiracial or multicultural individuals and couples
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White folx, whether full or mixed, who want to deconscruct their racial identity without worry of judgement
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Those who are seeking higher levels of meaning and connection
Therapeutic Philosophy
Sonja believes that everyone has the essential ingredients for personal transformation. Although, everyone must contend with the burdens of past negative experiences, she views her clients through the perspective of possibility and their greatest potential. Sonja’s personal style with her clients is rooted in authenticity and immediacy, using interactions in the present moment as a looking glass into the nature of self. She also works to dismantle power dynamics that can be found in traditional therapist-client relationships.
With a lifetime of meaningful personal experience and over 20 years of diverse professional experience, Sonja offers a unique, pluralistic viewpoint and meaningful strategies, giving clients the opportunity to explore anew aspects of themselves, their relationships, their careers, and higher meaning. Her unique multicultural background taught her to negotiate the disparate needs and expectations of multiple cultural realms; a growing commonplace for many individuals. Her personal and professional experience with multicultural couples and blended families also serves as a resource for parents and adult children who seek to improve family dynamics, improve intimate relationships, or seek to resolve wounding from earlier experiences.
Sonja uses a holistic lens. She believes that client problems are not problems with the self, but a result of the circumstances that surround them. Sonja educates her clients about systemic impacts (cultural, social, environmental, political) on relationships, human development and personal well-being. She also supports clients in investigating (with referrals) health and lifestyle related issues that create barriers to wellness. She investigates how physical health impacts mental health and makes health recommendations for improving overall well-being. Her overall goal is to support individuals and couples in grounding into their essential selves and relationships in a world where we are required to be complicit in what alienates us from each other.
Sonja is a person-centered, trauma-informed, somatic psychotherapist whose approach to therapy is both practical and deepening. While adept at solution-oriented approaches, she also integrates mind/body and spiritual practices, neuroscience, post-modernism, and levity into her work with clients. In simple terms, every part of the arc in the human and spiritual experience matters; understanding past experiences, bringing the unconscious to the conscious, understanding internal and external influences on well-being and development, anchoring to the present moment, making contact with the ineffable and strategizing for short- and long-term future possibilities. Her flexibility, creativity, intuitiveness and grounded nature give ease to working with many different kinds of peoples.
Although Sonja has experience working with various populations, her passion is found in working with individuals and couples who struggle with negotiating the multiple intersections of their lives. This arguably includes any person because people are unique and complex, occupying many roles and identities. Sonja believes that it is within the intersections of our lives and our ineffable experiences where we discover who we are, what we are made of, and find the courage to become exactly who we were meant to be.
Background / Biography
Sonja Choi Heifetz, MS
Licensed Professional Counselor
Sonja grew up in Amarillo, Texas in a hospital located on Old Route 66. Her mother emigrated from South Korea and her father lived through The Great Depression in the Deep South. Sonja grew up as a “minority among minorities” in a Latinx low-income neighborhood. Sonja's childhood was filled with richness and diversity. Her life experiences were informed by navigating multiple realms related to class, race, religion, spirituality, violence, traditional gender norms, immigration status, and privilege. Sonja’s search for belonging and love for nature motivated her to move to the California where she began her career and community building pursuits. Her other career experiences consisted of outdoor adventure guiding, teaching environmental and social sustainability, corporate life, entrepreneurship, environmental policy, insomnia intervention coaching and parenting as an adoptive mother.
Sonja's motivation to pursue a career in counseling psychology began as a college instructor where she came to believe that in order to have both environmental and social justice we must begin by meeting the everyday needs of people, psychologically, spiritually and practically, thus, guiding them toward higher order action in changing their lives, the systems they live in, and the ripple in the space-time fabric. Her belief in human potential paired with her obsessive fascination with human behavior and admiration of the human spirit coalesced into becoming a traveler where Sonja has the honor of supporting and witnessing individuals transcend their limitations.
Sonja has a B.A. in Sustainable Community Development and Environmental Studies and an M.S. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychotherapy and couples work. Sonja is a self-proclaimed Jill-of-all-Trades and seeks to paint her life canvas with as many colors as possible. She continues to enjoy outdoor adventures and her deepest passions with singing, dancing, place-making and foreign languages. Sonja has had the privilege of immersing herself in other cultures and living abroad. She currently lives in Portland, OR with her husband, son, and her fur-baby, Marley, who sometimes attends in-person sessions.
Contact
Sonja Choi Heifetz Counseling LLC
1020 SW Taylor Street, Suite 440 | Portland, Oregon 97205
Tel: 503-382-8534
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